It's a big news week, but first a follow-up on the FRENCH fry issue: Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and French Embassy spokeswoman Nathalie Loiseau said it better than I ever could:

"Making Congress look even sillier than it sometimes looks would not be high on my priority list"
- Rep. Frank

"I wonder if it's worth a comment. Honestly. We are working these days on very, very serious issues of war and peace, life or death. We are not working on potatoes."
- Ms. Loiseau

Now onto the news:
1. The first ever International Criminal Court started up yesterday, with 18 judges sworn in to uphold international criminal law (in whatever state it's in). Of course, the U.S. opposes it (God forbid any Americans are ever charged with any international crime). Here's to hoping the Court does good honest work.

2. The partial-birth abortion bill is about to pass in Congress and be signed into law by the Shrub. AND the Senate blocked a Democrat-backed amendment which would add expanded birth control insurance coverage and education. That is strange to me. Is it only intuitive to ME that if you are against abortion (or partial-birth abortion, or whatever other kind of abortion there is), you could conceivably try to educate girls and women about contraception, safe sex, abstinence -- all the options that exist for women -- and actually provide them with these options so that they may not get pregnant and thus would not have to resort to abortion, which would be your ultimate goal in the first place, right? Why make it more difficult for women to have access to birth control, or to teach them about birth control? I hate to fall back on this well-worn argument, but women are going to get pregnant -- voluntarily or not -- and some are going to want to have abortions -- for medical reasons or for pure reasons of birth control. If you are opposed to using abortion as a method of birth control, GIVE WOMEN ACCESS TO OTHER METHODS. Then you won't have so many incidents of those abortions you hate so much. Sigh. Do I have to do everything around here?!

3. The trial of James C. Kopp, the man who shot and killed obstetrician Dr. Barnett Slepian (in the name of God, of course) in upstate New York, is slated to begin on Monday. It was to be a jury trial, but Kopp made the unusual request for a stipulated bench trial: both sides will present an agreed upon stipulation of facts to Judge Michael D'Amico, and the prosecution and defense will make oral summations of their arguments. Then the Judge decides the case; all of this could take as little as a day. There's also an eerie article by Dr. Slepian's niece in this week's (3/17/03) issue of New York Magazine. Might I add a little note here: not all Christians go around shooting doctors who perform abortions, nor do all Christians even WANT to. Kopp was not and is not about protecting babies. Nor can he rightfully call himself a follower of Christ. Kopp is just crazy and misguided, and he belongs in jail.

And I start my morning's work on this gentle note:

``War must always be a measure of last resort." - Kofi Annan